0.  I was just trying to breathe

Every inch of my story line
I drank like coffee that you need so badly
You don't notice the taste of ash
it leaves in your throat
and when I breathed out smoke,
slowly gliding from my tongue,
you'll know, the words I can't choke
the ones I hung to dry,
but left them outside
through a crisp winter season
and returned just in time
to catch the lullaby as it dissolved into water.
I couldn't wait any longer.
I broke them into icy pieces
that fit back in my mouth.
I held them there long after I breathed
the blizzard that had formed in my stomach.
I couldn't swallow, I couldn't breathe
and I couldn't wait for you to leave.

So I locked my icy breath in my hands
and looked for silent corners between buildings
so I could begin to understand
how to squeezed out the blood from the words I've been spilling

I. White Moonlight

I went up the mountain side
listening to the canyon's song.
Dancing beneath the tree lines, I soaked
in the pines and cypresses.

I ran to the west, searching for a place to rest.
Fell asleep in the foothills
and had to run home to catch the light
Running in the dark, I would not beat the night.

[I was a villager traveling through
There came the White Knight with red hair in view
offered a space, a safe place for the night]

The white knight held out his hand to an aching soul.
Accepted.
Trusting the purity in a path lit by moonlight
Unknowingly, I would never trust white again.

II. Static

Deceived and seduced by the safety and warmth of white,
There was a subtle yellow tint in your light
that began to scream from its origin and fight against the walls
A cinderblock room colored in skin absorbed my calls

There was air trapped in my bones
that halted movement and created unfamiliar vocal tones
There were no cuts or bloodstains,
but all that was white drained to red
as he wrapped my limbs in reins
(to) make them dance, make them spread
Dance for the White Knight
make them move as you please, White Knight.

This body was a delicate ship that had been sunken
from a night spent in a dungeon
with a monster disguised as a man
whose touch would shave inches from my wingspan
Now these limbs do not belong,
the pressure outlines of your unwelcomed hands
Whimpers became the lyrics to my muted, morning song

I didn't know, how minutes can become tattooed in your veins
with each breath, a gentle push of blood through your body
you begin to taste the ***** again
the red clouds invade and bring me back to the monster's den

Now he holds these layers as the corners all peel
from a defeat long ago, a kidnapping, a delicious steal
The potency of your dominance
the power you must have felt
in watching a flower melt

III. Silence

The moon is now a cold light,
but nothing is wrong.
A response clean as white-
A secret
to be naked and unprotected for so long.

My youth cools the coffee
My stomach burns the atmosphere
encapsulating me
Teeth marks stains on my pillowcases
In the day, there is outward harmony
Like carefully crisscrossed shoelaces
Night falls with the sound of silent sobs.
My walls begin to melt.
They are turning yellow
Reliving how it felt
to be betrayed by something white.
I can't live through the day with anticipation of the night
when that white light floods in
I try to tear you out from beneath my skin

IV. Don't Try to Love Me

The luxury to be still.
Motions that were quiet
Set the music to your gaze
as you reopen the tears
When will you open the steel curtains,
you drape around your heart?
I run my fingertips and I can’t find
how you’ve cloaked the mistakes in your architecture
There is nothing poetic about solitude
Let me pinpoint the coordinates of your pain
Let me find the exact longitude
Let me be your constant latitude
I know you are alive

You live in some unknown torment,
I once saw you writhe in the night
and under the moonlight

He didn’t know
How I was preoccupied
I had to settle the background noise
the constant buzz between my ears
that fills my head so I could never hear
How much he could have loved me.

V. Patience

How sweet to be loved by you
You are warm weather in February
You are the reflection of a mountain in a reservoir
mais mon humeur est noire

We were in a large room lit
by one lamp in the far corner
when words poured from my jaw of glass,
I guess I could have asked
but it seems no one knows
the cadence and way words can flow
into our hearts and puncture the soul

How sweet it was, to think I could be loved by you
You are figurine of my fears
A January wedding in three years
A shadow mapping an escape plan
Yet I lace my fingers in your hand

You don't belong with me
but when the delicate words
trembled from your lips
and your voice stopped
with my stare
Both your hands in my hair
I wish I knew how to tell you,
but I couldn't remember why
you had to be someone to just pass the time.

VI. Deliberate Return

It should have felt like
a lifted weight
so I could move through
an unlocked gate

brush your teeth on my neck
and your cheeks across my chest
I thought last time was the last time
Tiny drops became the anthem
And the tears found a quiet path
To roll onto my belly
Between you and me

I could still taste the poetry you left in my mouth
the deception and interception
of my growth
and of my youth

My clothes hung off my back
darkness from all the sleep I lack
Trying to wash out the scent of you
after 6 years, I thought I'd be through
but you've kept me here and I've let you

I am a lost warrior in the meadow
Treading water every night
Trapped in an internal fight
You held me in the shadows
Grabbing at the wildflowers in my breath
But I just kept breathing in the echoes
Of a time I must let go

The mist of my trouble followed me in March
I’d sit with tea and say things like ‘I feel better, but maybe not tomorrow’
There was no promise
Just moderate disbelief
No security in my sleep
So when I shook your outline out of my sheets
Laid in bed where I once lost my youth
I wish that this was not my truth

VII. Shuddering While Healing

There is a section of the river where
the current sends it’s shivers
The wind dances with the tree branches in slow motion
(but) I was grown with my toes on the edge of the ocean
Leaning in with your hand and handsome love songs
about relentlessness and forgiveness
You sang a gold song
like a January river
flowing beneath the ice
You thought your love could break through
that shallow ceiling, but I couldn't hear the tapping
as you drowned beneath my feet
I was submerged in the cross currents
pulling me and hugging me caught in the center
how I heated up and bent you
then left to wade in the river
how you stayed next to me
and remained never bitter

I can't find the line
and I can't ask you to throw me one
because I'm dragging you in as I float through
tracing the fire I began on this river
with my fingertips
and remembering how I was grown on the shore
but how I can never be sure
if the breath in my ear
is someone to be trusted
or if the breath in my ear
is that monster crawling near
taking the color, once again, from my atmosphere.

VIII. Fragile

The sweet kisses he planted on my shoulders
and the moves he made were full of truth
The guilt he felt should have been mine
but the longer he stayed the more I felt fine

For the other’s love was simply beige
And outlined in black
I didn’t want excitement
I didn’t want lust
It was not enticement or boredom
It was from the buildup of rust
between my bones.
And I listened to your breath against my shoulder through the phone.
It hit me like an ensemble
predicating the concerto.
You were just an instrument.
And here I thought I was the conductor
just dreaming of ways to escape.
And I don’t sleep well when I’m next to him either.
Because I’m dreaming of ways to relate.
And I don’t sleep well when I’m alone.
Because there’s no one left to blame.
So now trying to be tame
Searching for an answer
in a small place like alone

IX. Releasing

What it means to be powerful
I saw it in shades of red
To find your feet still melt the snow
To find the only security is within
the confounds of your frozen bones
I was sure that diving meant drowning
but I've been drowning on the shore
Since you touched me and wanted more
Since you saw me raw
I evolved into a monster
scratching and clawing at your dungeon's door
You can't keep me here forever

You displaced my trust in balance
and turned something beautiful into something *******
But if I can see your belly button,
then you were born once too.

What does it mean to be powerful?
I can do it in soft baby blue
I can do it with the haunting memory of you,
but I don't want you with me anymore
So, good night white knight.
You don’t get to have this moonlight
and soon I will no longer be afraid of the color white.

X. Tenderness

Tenderness.
That was the name of my pain.
It was not the bitterness
that makes us take down photographs
or change the song.
It was not about bitterness.
It’s about tenderness
and distance

I learned that the silent pauses
between gusts of wind causes
more sound than running facets.

I learned when you’re ******* for feelings
You start to feel the weight of the ceilings
We just hold on our backs and call it 'dealing.'

Trying to achieve the humility of a willow tree
Turning yellow in the slow descent to winter
But I’m not going to wait to give you what you need
White knight, tonight, I leave
Because I know you’ve been living in me like a splinter
Strong enough to puncture
Weak enough to be removed
This glass castle is just a structure
That could be improved

But you already made a house
And now you’re trying to pick out decorations
Let me tell you, humans are not decorations
Another human should be a matched foundation
I think you almost saw that too
When you felt the vibration of the wind from me to you

Terrified because it’s never about growing
it’s about pride.
Too scared of showing
the days we cried
cried so hard it became
the anthem of our week.
No, we can never show we are weak

Terrified
The fragility of our pride
So we disconnect, in order to protect.

Let me tell you, no one describes this life as a glide
If they do, they lied
Everyone is terrified or uninteresting
Yet we are all putting up walls and distancing

Farther and farther
What would it feel like if I asked you about the sound of tenderness?
Or what it looks like to be repaired?
We are so afraid of being unprepared
we don’t hear how the wind
sounds like children growing
How healing feels like the roll of the river
and just because you shiver
does not mean you will be cold forever
and those silent pauses between gusts of terror
when we are just a step away from pulling that lever
are the moments we should reflect on
These are all those things that cause us
to be terrified
and learn to be tender

XI. Happiness Doesn’t Leave a Mark

How do I tell you
that every day used to be a battle?
One that I fought because I had to
so I could get up and fight the next day.
It was never about winning.

This is a Saturday night kind of pain.
The kind you feel that doesn't belong to you.
But at least you are no longer numb.

I want to show you where I'm from.
That childhood house that saw too many ways
to shatter plates on holidays
When I left, I grew back wings
and flew through the haze
You see, plates and whites are just things
but you can make anything a symbol
and when you see that this is no signal,
this is a sign. That I can be standing here with you
and still die
but this time, maybe I’ll let you inside
because
I've been too many people to start anew
I've loved the color blue
Loved a man with an amber hue
I was damaged in a yellow room
but I cannot match a color to you

My mother,
She said "the weakest point in a rope
is where it connects to another
and your insides are tangled"
You see, I can live with the knots
I want to look at you and know
You can trust this knot to hold
You know I'll pull through
You're not so scared
of a scar, or a few
Because I want to share where I've been with you
*and that includes the happiness too.

Every inch of my story line
I drank like coffee that you need so badly
You don't notice the taste of ash
it leaves in your throat
and when I breathed out smoke,
slowly gliding from my tongue,
you'll know, the words I can't choke
the ones I hung to dry,
but left them outside
through a crisp winter season
and returned just in time
to catch the lullaby as it dissolved into water.
I couldn't wait any longer.
I broke them into icy pieces
that fit back in my mouth.
I held them there long after I breathed
the blizzard that had formed in my stomach.
I couldn't swallow, I couldn't breathe
and I couldn't wait for you to leave.

So I locked my icy breath in my hands
and looked for silent corners between buildings
so I could begin to understand
how to squeeze out the blood from the words I've been spilling

I went up the mountain side
listening to the canyon's song.
Dancing beneath the tree lines, I soaked
in the pines and cypresses.

I ran to the west, searching for a place to rest.
Fell asleep in the foothills
and had to run home to catch the light
Running in the dark, I would not beat the night.

[I was a villager traveling through
There came the White Knight with red hair in view
offered a space, a safe place for the night]

The white knight held out his hand to an aching soul.
Accepted.
Trusting the purity in a path lit by moonlight
Unknowingly, I would never trust white again.

Deceived and seduced by the safety and warmth of white,
There was a subtle yellow tint in your light
that began to scream from its origin and fight against the walls
A cinderblock room colored in skin absorbed my calls

There was air trapped in my bones
that halted movement and created unfamiliar vocal tones
There were no cuts or bloodstains,
but all that was white drained to red
as he wrapped my limbs in reins
(to) make them dance, make them spread
Dance for the White Knight
make them move as you please, White Knight.

This body was a delicate ship that had been sunken
from a night spent in a dungeon
with a monster disguised as a man
whose touch would shave inches from my wingspan
Now these limbs do not belong,
the pressure outlines of your unwelcomed hands
Whimpers became the lyrics to my muted, morning song

I didn't know, how minutes can become tattooed in your veins
with each breath, a gentle push of blood through your body
you begin to taste the ***** again
the red clouds invade and bring me back to the monster's den

Now he holds these layers as the corners all peel
from a defeat long ago, a kidnapping, a delicious steal
The potency of your dominance
the power you must have felt
in watching a flower melt

The moon is now a cold light,
but nothing is wrong.
A response clean as white-
A secret
to be naked and unprotected for so long.

My youth cools the coffee
My stomach burns the atmosphere
encapsulating me
Teeth marks stains on my pillowcases
In the day, there is outward harmony
Like carefully crisscrossed shoelaces
Night falls with the sound of silent sobs.
My walls begin to melt.
They are turning yellow
Reliving how it felt
to be betrayed by something white.
I can't live through the day with anticipation of the night
when that white light floods in
I try to tear you out from beneath my skin

The luxury to be still.
Motions that were quiet
Set the music to your gaze
as you reopen the tears
When will you open the steel curtains,
you drape around your heart?
I run my fingertips and I can’t find
how you’ve cloaked the mistakes in your architecture
There is nothing poetic about solitude
Let me pinpoint the coordinates of your pain
Let me find the exact longitude
Let me be your constant latitude
I know you are alive

You live in some unknown torment,
I once saw you writhe in the night
and under the moonlight

*He didn’t know
How I was preoccupied
I had to settle the background noise
the constant buzz between my ears
that fills my head so I could never hear
How much he could have loved me.

How sweet to be loved by you
You are warm weather in February
You are the reflection of a mountain in a reservoir
mais mon humeur est noire

We were in a large room lit
by one lamp in the far corner
when words poured from my jaw of glass,
I guess I could have asked
but it seems no one knows
the cadence and way words can flow
into our hearts and puncture the soul

How sweet it was, to think I could be loved by you
You are figurine of my fears
A January wedding in three years
A shadow mapping an escape plan
Yet I lace my fingers in your hand

You don't belong with me
but when the delicate words
trembled from your lips
and your voice stopped
with my stare
Both your hands in my hair
I wish I knew how to tell you,
but I couldn't remember why
you had to be someone to just pass the time.

It should have felt like
a lifted weight
so I could move through
an unlocked gate

brush your teeth on my neck
and your cheeks across my chest
I thought last time was the last time
Tiny drops became the anthem
And the tears found a quiet path
To roll onto my belly
Between you and me

I could still taste the poetry you left in my mouth
the deception and interception
of my growth
and of my youth

My clothes hung off my back
darkness from all the sleep I lack
Trying to wash out the scent of you
after 6 years, I thought I'd be through
but you've kept me here and I've let you

I am a lost warrior in the meadow
Treading water every night
Trapped in an internal fight
You held me in the shadows
Grabbing at the wildflowers in my breath
But I just kept breathing in the echoes
Of a time I must let go

The mist of my trouble followed me in March
I’d sit with tea and say things like ‘I feel better, but maybe not tomorrow’
There was no promise
Just moderate disbelief
No security in my sleep
So when I shook your outline out of my sheets
Laid in bed where I once lost my youth
I wish that this was not my truth

There is a section of the river where
the current sends it’s shivers
The wind dances with the tree branches in slow motion
(but) I was grown with my toes on the edge of the ocean
Leaning in with your hand and handsome love songs
about relentlessness and forgiveness
You sang a gold song
like a January river
flowing beneath the ice
You thought your love could break through
that shallow ceiling, but I couldn't hear the tapping
as you drowned beneath my feet
I was submerged in the cross currents
pulling me and hugging me caught in the center
how I heated up and bent you
then left to wade in the river
how you stayed next to me
and remained never bitter

I can't find the line
and I can't ask you to throw me one
because I'm dragging you in as I float through
tracing the fire I began on this river
with my fingertips
and remembering how I was grown on the shore
but how I can never be sure
if the breath in my ear
is someone to be trusted
or if the breath in my ear
is that monster crawling near
taking the color, once again, from my atmosphere.

The sweet kisses he planted on my shoulders
and the moves he made were full of truth
The guilt he felt should have been mine
but the longer he stayed the more I felt fine

For the other’s love was simply beige
And outlined in black
I didn’t want excitement
I didn’t want lust
It was not enticement or boredom
It was from the buildup of rust
between my bones.
And I listened to your breath against my shoulder through the phone.
It hit me like an ensemble
predicating the concerto.
You were just an instrument.
And here I thought I was the conductor
just dreaming of ways to escape.
And I don’t sleep well when I’m next to him either.
Because I’m dreaming of ways to relate.
And I don’t sleep well when I’m alone.
Because there’s no one left to blame.
So now trying to be tame
Searching for an answer
in a small place like alone

What it means to be powerful
I saw it in shades of red
To find your feet still melt the snow
To find the only security is within
the confounds of your frozen bones
I was sure that diving meant drowning
but I've been drowning on the shore
Since you touched me and wanted more
Since you saw me raw
I evolved into a monster
scratching and clawing at your dungeon's door
You can't keep me here forever

You displaced my trust in balance
and turned something beautiful into something *******
But if I can see your belly button,
then you were born once too.

What does it mean to be powerful?
I can do it in soft baby blue
I can do it with the haunting memory of you,
but I don't want you with me anymore
So, good night white knight.
You don’t get to have this moonlight
and soon I will no longer be afraid of the color white.

Tenderness.
That was the name of my pain.
It was not the bitterness
that makes us take down photographs
or change the song.
It was not about bitterness.
It’s about tenderness
and distance

I learned that the silent pauses
between gusts of wind causes
more sound than running facets.

I learned when you’re ******* for feelings
You start to feel the weight of the ceilings
We just hold on our backs and call it 'dealing.'

Trying to achieve the humility of a willow tree
Turning yellow in the slow descent to winter
But I’m not going to wait to give you what you need
White knight, tonight, I leave
Because I know you’ve been living in me like a splinter
Strong enough to puncture
Weak enough to be removed
This glass castle is just a structure
That could be improved

But you already made a house
And now you’re trying to pick out decorations
Let me tell you, humans are not decorations
Another human should be a matched foundation
I think you almost saw that too
When you felt the vibration of the wind from me to you

Terrified because it’s never about growing
it’s about pride.
Too scared of showing
the days we cried
cried so hard it became
the anthem of our week.
No, we can never show we are weak

Terrified
The fragility of our pride
So we disconnect, in order to protect.

Let me tell you, no one describes this life as a glide
If they do, they lied
Everyone is terrified or uninteresting
Yet we are all putting up walls and distancing

Farther and farther
What would it feel like if I asked you about the sound of tenderness?
Or what it looks like to be repaired?
We are so afraid of being unprepared
we don’t hear how the wind
sounds like children growing
How healing feels like the roll of the river
and just because you shiver
does not mean you will be cold forever
and those silent pauses between gusts of terror
when we are just a step away from pulling that lever
are the moments we should reflect on
These are all those things that cause us
to be terrified
and learn to be tender

How do I tell you
that every day used to be a battle?
One that I fought because I had to
so I could get up and fight the next day.
It was never about winning.

This is a Saturday night kind of pain.
The kind you feel that doesn't belong to you.
But at least you are no longer numb.

I want to show you where I'm from.
That childhood house that saw too many ways
to shatter plates on holidays
When I left, I grew back wings
and flew through the haze
You see, plates and whites are just things
but you can make anything a symbol
and when you see that this is no signal,
this is a sign. That I can be standing here with you
and still die
but this time, maybe I’ll let you inside
because
I've been too many people to start anew
I've loved the color blue
Loved a man with an amber hue
I was damaged in a yellow room
but I cannot match a color to you

My mother,
She said "the weakest point in a rope
is where it connects to another
and your insides are tangled"
You see, I can live with the knots
I want to look at you and know
You can trust this knot to hold
You know I'll pull through
You're not so scared
of a scar, or a few
Because I want to share where I've been with you
*and that includes the happiness too.

You only wanted to get up early
out of fear of missing the sunrise
Sometimes you'd wait, thinking
soaking up the night will make you wise.
Sifting through our own demise,
we find comfort in the passing of time.
Do not forget that we do not rewind.
Moving fast through moments to find
some peace of mind.
We lose these minutes like dimes on the street
Trying to escape our own feet
Disengage from the moment we meet.

You were speaking while I was writing poetry in my head
Back then, I saw you painted in deep red
When my fingertips boiled with fear
and pop from the air in my bones
You were random, embroidered lace
and I was only happy with the wind in my face

I told you there was nothing poetic about the need to be alone
You told me fear was present wherever love breeded
I told you love is an equation with no solution needed
You said love is distance and it meant listening to the echos and the sounds of space

You looked at the trees in the winter
with an admiration for endurance

In the evening, you were winter blue
but by morning, you were a soft amber hue
you were still blooming into someone new
and I just wanted to feel
something more than the air between my bones
and the words borrowed and loaned
that dropped from your jaw
I wanted the words planted in your stomach
I wanted the words that are raw
with the sensations and emotions
that set you into motion
Believe me, when I tell you, you are more than the color blue
you are the soft warmth in white light
you are the promise of the morning
when I only breath the night

The soft blue glow
seeping past curtains
arising from early morning snow
How it felt so forceful the night before
How it seems to be at peace behind my door

I don't remember what it felt like last year
I don't remember when I began to taste distance
when you were near

I read somewhere in blue ink
that I needed distance to collect thoughts
I tried to pour down the sink
I read somewhere in black pen
that you were glowing brighter than you had ever been

I walked along the frozen curb
buried in nights of snowfall
I could taste your voice in the night wind's call
I could hear you turn over in your bed
and I turned us over, gently, in my head

Freedom started with leaving
but I can never stop believing
in the woman, that waited
on me to never bloom
The woman I created
sending thoughts down a flume
and stuck floating through
a mysterious glow
a solid flow
I thought it was time I'd let you know
I would have never learned to grow
against gravity and the ground
And stop starting all my love with a countdown
There was no longer a cavity when you were around
Maybe it's time to be found

Precision lived in the way she spoke
Cadence like a poem
She could have wrote.

She wore heels in my kitchen
as she danced around the sink.
She had been soaking in music all day,
she needed the noise to think.

I could feel her desire and approval
of all my corners and sharp edges
and all my performances, she applauded
never seeking my reform
She just wanted to slip out of the face and clothes she had worn
All day.

But those heels stayed on
tapping the hardwood floor
I could hear her in my kitchen
smothered by the bright red walls.

But those heels stayed on
so she could make the music,
as she danced around like
there was a light flowing in.
I could feel aggression in the acoustics
that somewhere beneath all that soft skin
something learned to be muted
a streak of darkness,
that small spot she wouldn't let me in
She held it so dear and so tight
I couldn't get near

When we fell to ashes dreaming of ways to connect
I could feel the abstract effect
of her fingertips at the base of my neck
on the side of my cheek
in the curls of my hair
tangled and tugging
Little tears she left
on my back and arms colored in white
because I wanted to harness her light

I should have known she'd be gone before she left
so when I saw her there
a luminous, nonchalant stare
I knew she was simply unaware
of how my kitchen is still swollen with the music
of her clicking red heels
of how my floors have deep wounds that are beginning to peel

So, I burned through August like a pack of cigarettes
With a distaste for oval-faced, brunettes,
And I'm trapped inside the mind of a theorist
pretending your vacant pity
will make my sight clearest

Red morning commutes
awoke in September, with optimism to settle disputes,
Riding in the soft rain of yellow leaves,
but I'm not the only one who grieves
over dancing, straight-haired women
in red high heels

So when she appeared in my atmosphere
somewhere  behind dark curls, I began to feel
How afraid I was to draw you near

Her mistrust of my performances
and sharp edges
she soaked in the soft piano that drummed from the fireplace
and spilled in through the skylights in my room.
We laid in bed through Sunday's noon.
Silent kisses became the only music that played -
the rustle of sheets, quiet moans
the subtle changes in tone
in and out, constant static.
You didn't feel the need to fill the silence.
So I let the silence in.
We used to be such experts on reliance
Now we were never under each other's skin
This was not a game, either of us was going to win

I heard you come through my front door
you were all smiles in a small black dress
The lack of guilt behind,
the desire to watch your undress
was an innocent crime, but I couldn't confess.

When you wrapped your arms around me
I heard your shoes against the floor
then running down the carpets
as we drifted past my bedroom door

I never confessed
How loving you was driving towards an eastward storm
away from the blue skies growing behind me in the west.
How I tried to describe you as an art form
the kind that flows into me
but I'm an aseptic scholar
To have thought of you like poetry,
when you were a watercolor
painted in sparrow black.
How I loved you like an echo,
but you were a small whisper
that never came back.

The soft trickle of rain leaves
the little cough, as your hand weaves
Her head buried in my sheets
damaged by each day in the week
We laid in bed, wondering what wouldn't last
and waited for October to pass

Crooked teeth and definitions
I find you in secure conditions
Releasing all my inhibitions
Each encounter, like new auditions
Sleeping with the apprentice of my clinician
He was my latest edition
His voice like a musician's
and mine like a statistician's
I spoke in black and white compositions
with timed intermissions
and subtle transitions
that flowed through suppressed suspicions
stemming from little competitions
A heart like a mathematician's
and a mind, selfish, like a politician's
the Apprentice and the Clinician
fell in love with repetition.

Staring at miniature piles
crumbs, dirt
in corners of the kitchen
Looking around, the world moved in frames
I stood trying to shake free for hours
then I surrendered

I felt the song
the high-pitched squeal
of the world going silent

I could feel every sensation
ever scar
ever action
like an anthem
playing in my mind

I sank to the floor
Sat Up Tall
tried to breathe
capture my own fall

There was a runner, a fisherman and a photographer
and they all dreamt of seeing the Northern Lights
when they got there
the fisherman ran,
the runner stopped to take a photo
and the photographer sat and stared

There was a poet, a carpenter, and a lunatic
and they all dreamt of fame.
It was all about timing
and when the season came,
the carpenter built a guitar,
the lunatic wrote a memoir,
and the poet only wrote masterpieces after countless hours in a bar.

There was a student, an architect, and an engineer
and they all dreamt of freedom
from the chains of class, work, or the past
They were not unique in their envy
and were assigned to design a levy
that would hold water for the town
enough to quench rich thirst
and enough to drown

The architect sent the design first,
The engineer built a key like a curse
to unlock the levy upon request
the student observed, but imprisoned by impatience, could not rest
thought there was freedom in approval
so pridefully, he pulled
he stood on a hill ready for renewal
had studied the design of the levy and all of its features
had built a key, better than his teacher's
unlocked the levy and washed out the town
but absorbed in his plan, he forgot to warn the (one) man
and watched how even ideas drown

I unpacked your boxes too quickly.
I exposed the whiteness of your thighs
freckled by the reddish-brown hairs
I uncovered the wrinkles in your blue iris
the lies and tears behind your front teeth
evenly crooked

I wanted your words to flutter from your mind
but they dropped from your throat to the floor
I wanted your laughter in your core to be kind
but it came from a shallow, envious drawer

I pulled strands and veins out of boxes
Found bundles and tangles
that I assumed should be unraveled
but when I pulled and twisted one straight,
you left in your car with a crunch in the gravel
Drove straight into the arms of
Malbec wine
at low rise tables with one chair,
an excerpt from a novel bent at the spine
and the sweater you never let me wear

I drank from the pint glass you brought home for me
and it wasn't a statement.
I wore no mask.
I simply sipped.
It's only meaning to transport water to my lips
Calmly, coating my belly
So slowly I'd wait
Imagining water burning like *****
Barreling down my throat
like an interstate

I wanted it back
the feeling of feeling
the fear that walks with revealing
the love, the artist, and the lunatic
all cooked together and left to steep

I pulled out my own strands
the ones anchored deep.
I worked endlessly to straighten
You wrapped yourself in my veins
to tightly
You were trapped in the bundle
so you ran, then came a stumble
forgetting that I was anchored too
and so you pulled me right down with you.

And I left you there
with your tearful stare
I bunched up these strands
and laid out my demands
I carried them off, the tangled mess
You once announced was yours to hold
but you overestimated yourself
and watched me become cold
A block of ice, you could never melt
you were not all, you were not my wealth
you were only the weight I felt.

Ants carried cubes out the front door
piling into a cube truck
until I could see the living room floor
Everything moved and tucked
into my earthy living space
I packed you in envelops
put you away, but never to erase

I learned about the things you'd done
to keep our bread from molding
to replace a broken ladder rung
but you couldn't keep from folding
along the premade creases in your sheets
I couldn't stop you from holding
Five year plans separated by five day weeks

I woke up as someone I didn't recognize
belonging to the street lamps
instead of the summer sun rise

I fell asleep against computer screens
and hardcover books
Learned how the world never leens
to fit your perspective or new outlooks

I tried to place you in a cookie cutter
but you didn't fit the mold
so I let you spread and run like melted butter
along the creases, you naturally fold

I waited for you to stand on your own
then I learned about how being alone
doesn't feel like
icy hands in the morning
single cup coffee, crescent moons
or long car rides east in the afternoons

I could feel emptiness in your fumes
how the distance in our shared bed
made you wait for the darkness of new moons
So you could wander the sheets clearing your head
in the blanket of the night.

I thought you were searching for a light
to help guide you through
the galaxies between us
in our electric room

You pulled art we bought in markets
off the wall
You drifted in the reservoir, plunging under
to avoid my call
You took half the books
So I piled and stuffed my things in nooks
of the little room we moved into last July
we set up our first house
and knew it was a short-lived lie.

I was always convinced you could feel me
We were of the moon and of the tides
(But) too stubborn to attempt another ride

I wanted you to know everything
in my eyes.
The truth
when I deliberately told you lies
and the expense of a life in a heart before it dies.

You would be gone too soon
All of this and heaven too
I would wander, I will roam
I will find decadence in alone.
I would dream, I will achieve
Everything only after you leave

You are the anchor chained to my throat,
You are the sand in a shallow moat.
You are the power in my stare,
You are the guilt after an innocent dare.
You are the face in the shadows on the wall
You are the fear in the Devil's call

The invitation to come in
Join a game you cannot win.
But I play, but I play
And forgive the day
Forgive and move away
The state lines you will cross
To lasso me in, refuse your loss
Of my heart, of my head

Your place in the poems I have read

I remember running in the snow
at the end we were so frozen
we couldn't feel the bump of our nose
as we kissed
in a blanket of flurries

We left the first footprints each morning
I brought you black coffee in bed
and you would nestle against my head

I spent months avoiding nights spent over
I wasn't ready to feel again
but you seemingly wanted so badly to feel too
It was the darkness in me
that I saw in you

You forced me out by a simple decision
and the truth made a sharp incision
but I heal fast and bleed slow
There are parts of me
you'll never know

All the songs we played,
I thought they were about us.
All the stories they told,
I thought they reminded you of me.
All my walls, I let crumble
and I replayed those songs
like a storm and an anthem.
I dreamt of when they had meaning

Signs you never saw and
I was blindsided by the call so
my walls did crumble,
but I never let them fall.

I can now hear the wind mumble
I don't need its protection anymore.

Collecting items, slamming doors
and the plans you ignored

We were supposed to keep the time,
Carry the tune,
Rest our worried minds,
We were never supposed to outlast the changing seasons
and I can't disregard your reasons.

I can sleep alone
and I can follow a trail while
I continue to roam.
You always walked without creativity
and moved like a chain of reactivity.

I just wanted to loosen one chain
because you carry all the blame
that colors your past
and trickles like beads of sweat down
the mask
of your ship that you sail
insecurely with pride
and all along,
my expectation was simply
that I was just along for the ride

I had no destination in mind
and in my forced leave
I unraveled the weave

The beautiful mess
we created a life around
and the happiness we found
terrified and drained you.

I forgot that when I met you,
I already knew.
How you needed your chains
you needed the pain.

So you poison sun beams
and search for darkness in summer afternoons

Sectioning your life into hotel rooms
and that little rain cloud that looms
and follows you into every room
I thought were trying to escape,
but I learned it was more of a cape
or a badge you displayed
of past roads you have paved
and followed to a beginning
that was was supposed to be new,
but you live in repetition.

Thinking resolution is found
in the color blue.
All along missing the patterns of mistakes
and the souls you slowly crack then break.

There is no way to find restoration
in this healing process without a destination.
but I know I can't compete
or point out those grainy mistakes
that create a sandy wake
you travel in front of

I could feel your love
but it was true to the darkness
We were just tangled in a mess of lies
from the moment we met
you wanted to unravel every sun rise
but had given up on it by sunset.

a soft kiss
a hard goodbye
a light thank you
It's a heavy time
to start anew

but somewhere in a story I heard
there was room to be found

a gentle word
a morning flight east-bound
an early lesson learned
a feather-hearted town

you stood in the center
of a cornered-room
you watched without ever looking
and let her, quietly bloom

a blanket hug
a cold drink in an old mug
a blank voice
and comfort in the noise
that tracks her like a shadow
the way she walks in uniform
with her universe
woke up, but felt worse
cannot run, when you're immersed
even if all that surrounds
is what makes you feel found

words ramble like running feet in your mind

memories always fade in time

we put our hearts on the line
we lost it and now its too dark to find
the very place we left off

we let the wind spread out hair
we never seemed to care
about the fights left unsolved and unfair
we know what we found is rare

who knew how soon our love would wear
who knew how soon the winter made us cold
we took the time to unfold
our bodies always fit our mold
even when we lie miles apart
I know you'll always have a piece of my heart

like wood we drift away
in separate seas
tides spin the days change color in the leaves
you're the only one who still flees
you're not the only one who still believes

I went through my days' routine
so automatically
for so many weeks
that I didn't notice the peculiarity
of snow in May.
-*what do you feel when you feel nothing?

I was trying to describe you &
I could not escape the cliches
of doing you an injustice.
     to me you felt like light eyes
contrasting gray days
     to others you walked like a
dancing young child with years
untamed and wild
     to me you drifted, you were a
description - clear as the light that
contours your face & quickly I
was deceived by the obscurities
of your tenderness.
     I was trying to describe you,
but all I could feel was the
the colors you emitted and the tone that
played in your feet as you
danced across a campus made from
years of failures and successes.
     All I could taste was the
serenity of your voice and the tenderness
of your poise.
     I felt the colors you emitted
as I described you I told them

your laugh was simply *blue.

You called me all the names of things I feared
I'd one day become.
As we sat across, my favorite beer, my favorite bar,
this time I didn't run
I sat and I faced you,
but we didn't get far
before I realized I
was simply searching for happiness
in the same place I lost it
- *we originated from broken homes and only fell in love to escape alone

It rained for a week in the desert
at first we thought it was some kind of miracle
but then
we all started to drown
- *I thought I saw you yesterday

I place you in a mold
and when you didn't fit
I tried to make you bend
but there were holes in you
the kind that only you could mend

I could feel the seconds painting strokes across the morning
The light created blonde streaks across our bed
You had found a way to make every square of you,
Touch every square of me.
And all I could see was distance.

Our simple routine never did it for me
And somehow I think you always knew
And as I lay here, scared to move
I dreamt of the easy way out.

We built this life in blocks of three.
In the foothills of Colorado
Where too much air made the illusion we were free

I stole from our foundation blocks
Thinking I could speed up the relationship clock
Going forward and building higher
And driving straight into my fire.

It was a beautiful disaster around me
Our little life in blocks of three
I spent all our time together
Worried I'd make the same mistake
Only to find,
I'd been drowning in my own wake

I missed rainy mondays
the kind you can only get in the east
and I wove my days
with silken dreams
speckled with coarse sand and
at least
I thought I had a chance to understand
when I woke up to the rain
silently painting my window pane

I was a child
grown by the sea
I accumulated car minutes
and spent time between places
distracted by no other faces
than my own

Shifted to a slower tempo
I grew in the foothills
I accumulated long moments
walking from my office, home
I let the morning light wake me
& I
let you take me

You'd rest your hand in the small of my back
and you'd pull me in
and tangle yourself in my hair
we'd stay up all night and we didn't care
but we always made it to the sunrise
because it made the city look more honest
and we didn't know we were laying, happily,
in a twin bed of lies.

You told me, "not now,
everything fits."
but if you looked closer
we were missing a piece
- the responsibility of having someone else's love

we would lie in opposite directions on the couch
apologizing when we'd accidently touch
and I have already forgotten
what if felt like to be yours
- *there were no songs to tell me what I was feeling

I can't remember a day
I didn't try to run away
You looked at me and said
you thought you were the one
that would keep me still
- *fireflies still light up, even in a jar

You laid with your arm behind my head
and your hand on the small of my back
so you could catch the pieces if it broke
- *you were still there when I woke

But you can’t chase away a figment
And this recreation of you that loomed over me
I couldn’t escape your fog
I felt the allure of your darkness
And how it used to pull me in

You became an outline in the night
And I struggle to keep you near
Because when I kept on all the lights
I was blinded by my own fear

As I passed you, I painted blonde streaks across the bed
I thought it was a sign that was obvious and red,
But you were no longer the person that I knew
So I tried to shine straight through

I looked for you in the elbows of streets
And see pieces of you in every one I meet

No longer did I want to feel the sadness
Of your deliberate ignoring habits
You can disregard my presence
But I know you still live in remnants

The silent darkness you surrounded me with
Cannot suffocate me any more
You see, I am no longer fearful of the night
Because when you left me
I learned how to create my own light

He laughs in pairs
And appeared without cares
Surrounded by mares
And the emptiness wears

She laughed in three's
Long gone before she leaves
In a pattern she weaves
Consistently, not to displease

Together, their laughs came in fours
Deriving somewhere deep within their cores
And slipping their hands inside doors
To leave when they wanted more

Alone she filled her universe with patterns
To clear through all the dark matter
Climbing to the highest rung of this latter
She learned to separate all the clatter

My days seemed to come in pairs
they were so long they felt like separate entities
I couldn't feel their wear
so I didn't know to search for remedies

We ate canned food off crystal plates
and that fine china must have weighed more
than the burdens locked in our fates

I remember peeling the gray from around your eyes
like a second skin and it was time to fall off
but still hanging by a thread
crispy and cracked

and I could feel the miles in our bed
even when every way I reached
my fingertips always seemed to find you

I was only happy when I was far away
and only comfortable to come home
So I slept on the side you always lay
and I pushed you away and I wanted you to stay

We stole slate rocks from the mountain
and threw them into the sea
all along hoping, they'd become soft and smooth
or something else they were not meant to be

We whispered to the clusters of sand
that had grown to the rocks
and thought they'd hold the secrets
we could not understand

I stacked these rocks
and displayed them casually - like clocks
and I kept stealing slate rocks
but I was too far from the sea
and I knew it was still calling to me
but the mountains seem to absorb the yelling
and somehow seemed to be telling
but never felt a need to speak
or maybe at the time my ears were too weak

So I wanted to be strong.
Strong like the mountain
and impatiently I'd wait
because I thought I knew my own fate

Oh, how much I learned just watching how
the sun controls the mountain tides
as the moon will take care of the ocean's seasons
and how everything seems to wind
down to our own specific reasons
that we rest some place far from fear
some pace outside our little atmospheres

The days in August felt like rolling highway hills
and in those days I found myself
chained to a handful of wills

These days liked to crawl by
and I held onto the rope they trailed behind
hoping the momentum would tug me forward
but it all happened so slowly, I wondered
If I was in motion at all

August left on all the lights
and I followed behind her heat and turned them off
Simply believing I was doing what was right
but she kept on and I didn't mind because
I knew she was nearly out of time

So I tried to determine if I was an actor
in these days
or some type of spectator, distant and far away

August mornings felt like a fog
and I waited all afternoon for it to dissipate
but when it did
all I was left with
was an empty night
surrounded by unwanted lights

So I tried to hold on to the morning fog
I wrapped it around me
like a winter coat
and held onto those mornings
and tried to grip August Days

and when each morning left in a haze
faster than the morning before
I realized that the tighter I held on
the more distant I became
and I thought that holding with all my strength
would bring me back
when all along I knew,
I just needed to release these days
and it was something I just couldn't do.

Words traced and outlined,
rewritten and replaced
fine tuned, created, and made
words that generously looped and curved
around days I could not go straight through
for fear I've lost the comfort of the old
at the expense of the new
only resemblance is the mold
that once outlined the old.

I kept tracing and outlining
Words to heavy to pick up and carry to you.
So I keep these burdens to myself,
in a box, on a shelf
or under my bed.
and a simple tap
allows them to swim in my head
so fast I can't put them back
and I find that it's strength against you that I lack.

I've constructed this atmosphere
so you can't begin to come near
yet I find you in my northern hemisphere
and I wonder how I appear

I've build my dome from glass
so I can observe and Intervene
but my persuasion never lasts

I know when dark days
prevent me from seeing past
my windows of glass
and they bend and they crack
down the center pane
and I feel that strength I lack

I don't expect you'll send her
words of encouragement or pressure
just to mend her
just to make her lesser

and I don't know why you slip
in the water I saw you pour
all the while convincing me
that you never saw it on the floor

I don't want to understand
the way your words twist like DNA
into their double helix form
and in there I find unannounced strength to warm
those words that fit in my mouth like a diamond on a setting
capable of mesmerizing and capable of slicing

I made this universe so I could find you at your best
but as I lay these swimming words to rest
I know how you must first
remove my armor and break me down
before you can use the scripted words
I've outlined and traced
covered with warmth, but from mace
to dress the wounds that were not undone
and convince me that my scars are not of strength
much like the rest of what I've become

eyes grow on days like these
the rains sprinkles the drying clothes
emotions shine through eyes
on days like these

you cannot hide on days
where the rain does not wash
troubles away
where dark grey skies refuse to fade or
days the rain refuses to obey

days the sun misplaced his voice
the clouds interject with such poise
the rain infects the ground
as the wind penetrates, escapes and pounds
at the rocks refusing to fall
the mountain does not answer the wind's call
it has fallen silent on days like these

Our creations do not stir
nor answer the lure
they choose to adapt and endure

Fearful slide into the role
I wish not to presume
I feel the need for guidance
for some center - like a bowl
round and loud - caring about
things like a jellyfish
eat, sleep, sting -like the
ring of my memory
that has forgotten how to sing
gone like the voice of my memory
and I can feel
Alis grav nil and my memory sings
Nothing is Heavy with Wings

A voice commonly recognized
suddenly began to blend
a speech practiced until finalized
so easily how we did bend

Jealousy was control
given ungranted
eyes that shone a past unreleased
secretes the remains kept until deceased

too much revealed
vulnerable and hastily
trying to re-conceal
a simple discovery unaccepted

seemingly so unmoved
desiring to be removed
still and stable like a stone
but shame in your eyes over shone
the light you shine too bright
to blind those who try to fight
through your low-lit fog
to remind you
even stones, stand strong,
but crack and wash away

Retreated and Consumed
the exaggerated shame
I fight to release as I continue to contain

When I was not ready
I threw away my comic books
I threw away my heroes
and their villains,
my long shorts and wide shirts

I grew with tall shoes and straight pants
restless dresses and painted faces
weighted words turned to rants
and superior clothing filled my hero's closet spaces

Instead of floating through, I choose
the gravity of my bitterness
of which I hold because it tastes
so comfortable.

Instead of releasing on
I choose to carry all my mistakes
(of which) I hold because
they remind me how to fight the strongest of wakes

Instead of fighting for I gave up on
I let you go and I discovered the simple truth:
I will never let you know.

and alone is desirable
and alone is reliable
you're memory dims my bright days
and sours the sweet taste of
all my success
as all I've worked for caves
and the darkest of days
I remind you, I never looked away
you were the one, I couldn't save.